Category: Discipleship

New International Staff Join WDA

Posted on by Jordan Stafford

 

Friends, exciting news! We have two new associate staff!

Mark Nyirenda has been pastoring at Agape Baptist Church in Kitwe Zambia for the last several years. He has a missionary heart and served for a year alongside Jules Wazeng in the Congo. His wife is a teacher and he has 3 children. He is a WDA trainer and RYH leader. He will be an excellent addition to our team both within Zambia and I believe throughout Africa. We have been friends since 2010 and him joining staff is a dream come true! He is also a gifted writer and the brilliant mind behind our “Mr. Kasongo” case study.

Jeanine Nzikobanyanka is the wife of George Solo, though now we may have to start saying George is the husband of Jeanine. She is a gifted teacher and pastor in Burundi where she lives with her 4 children. She oversees 4 churches and has a degree in early childhood development. She has a wonderful sense of humor and a passion to train up believers, She will be a huge gift to WDA!

Please join me in welcoming Mark and Jeanine!

 

A Fierce Reckoning – RYH Moment, October 2021

Posted on by Jordan Stafford

Written by Joseph Hobbs. Published by Jordan Stafford.

 

I was raised in a rural farming community in south Georgia called Pleasant Hill.  It was about 10 miles from the smallest town and 25 to 30 miles to the bigger town.

I spent my childhood on a farm where we were the only family with children—in a place where segregation was alive, and in your face. There were many Churches in the community and neighbors who claimed to be Christian, but it didn’t always seem like they knew God personally or lived by His standard to love your neighbors as yourself.

As a young adult, while I was struggling to forgive my neighbors, I moved to Minot, ND. I began to see, learn and experience love, value, acceptance, connection, and security with my new neighbors. I began to meet with people, have conversations and read the Bible. These were all new experiences for me and showed me something different.  Sometime later I began to look at how Jesus related to his disciples.I was the fifth child of 11 children. I had parents who did not know how to interact with children, so they left me alone with no answers to my questions. I wondered why our neighbors treated us if as we were aliens and why we were labeled as slow, unintelligent, lazy and not human.  I was ashamed of not knowing who I really was and by my father not knowing how to interact with me as a child, to explain what was going on. As children we learned how to stay in our place and not bring trouble to the family or community.

My journey with Restoring Your Heart began back in Georgia in the mid 80’s when I joined a small church called Grace Free Church. This is where I met Jack Larson who was the Pastor.  I was going through a hard time at work where my co-workers did not want to work with me because I was the only African-American in the department.  They devalued me as a person and tried to find ways to assassinate my character and name to make me leave. Going through this situation brought back many memories of what I went through as a child.

In the RYH interactive group and through RYH workbooks, I started learning how to deal with my wrong thinking, losses and hurts.  I was hurt and I wept. I needed to have a fierce reckoning with what had happened to my community and me, how I felt about it and how it was still affecting my life. I learned that I had to grieve my losses before I could fully forgive those who hurt me as a child.  Those who had stolen my life and the life of my community.

In 2002 when I lost my oldest son in a car accident, it pushed me deep into grief and the pain was very great.  Restoring Your Heart stepped in again to help me to deal with my grief, to heal, and walk through the pain.  I also attended a Compassionate Friends group (group that helps parents and siblings to deal with the loss of a child or sibling.)  While in the group I saw how some people really deal with their pain and others do not. This was another great breakthrough where God and the Holy Spirit worked in my life with healing!  I now understand why grief is the hardest experience to recover from.God took me on a journey to show me how to love my neighbor like He (Jesus) had loved me. I began to see how I had been impacted greatly over the years from those negative messages and was still being impacted during my situation at work. I learned who I was as a person and how to get my needs met in healthy ways. Some years passed and I realized that I could not really mourn my childhood losses or issues without figuring out how to feel the deep pain from my neighbors.  I was taught that forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity. I used to think I understood forgiveness and believing in Jesus made forgiveness easy. Restoring Your Heart helped me to heal, love myself, forgive others, and truly love my neighbor.

As I was healing, God began to show me many people who were hurting, in pain and needed help. He has given me a passion for helping hurting people and Restoring Your Heart is the vehicle which I use to do this. RYH is a process that helps people become aware of how the hurts from the past have affected their present. We learn how to process our pain, grieve over the hurts, to heal, and to come to a place of full forgiveness.

It is still helping me to work through the process every time I facilitate a group.  I continue to heal from past pain and experience greater freedom.  So, I want YOU to join me in this ministry and learn how to help people through their healing process! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About The Author

Joseph Hobbs is part of the Worldwide Discipleship Association staff team and is a member of the Restoring Your Heart team. He facilitates RYH groups and helps write RYH materials.

 

 

Global Disciple Builder Podcast – Tial Thanga: Simplicity

Posted on by International Ministry

After his seminary education in the United States, Tial Thanga returned to his home country of Myanmar in the early 90’s, which at that time was under a military dictatorship. Since then, Tial has been instrumental in development of schools and churches throughout the country. In 1995, Tial started Reformed Seminary in Yangon.

Tial’s most notable featured is his good natured simplicity and the childlike curiosity he brings to his work developing the next generation of Christian leaders in Burma. I sat down with Tial in my 5th-story hotel room in Yangoon. We had just finished a week of discipleship training with some of his leaders and I wanted to hear more of his story as well as some of the unique opportunities and challenges of discipleship in a Buddhist Burmese context.

You can live stream the Global Disciple Builder Podcast on our Podcast Page, Subscribe via the iTunes podcast app or play on our widget in the footer of our website.

iTunes Podcast Link:

 

New Connections and a Bright Future for WDA Africa

Posted on by WDAHQ

New Connections and a Bright Future for WDA Africa

Nairobi 2017 finished Friday with the commissioning of 5 new staff, including new country directors for Congo and Ethiopia. Yesterday, those who are still here drove through Nairobi National Park featuring giraffes, one flustered ostrich, and a big lion fresh off her kill.

The conference I think far exceeded everyone’s expectations. Our 13 African associates connected exceptionally well with each other and our 13 American staff and volunteers, promising to pray for each other and to work together whenever possible. I was thrilled to see them think more strategically about WDA and begin to see it as a truly continental movement.

 

A few fun highlights from the week!

  • I bought 13 kindle fires and uploaded ALL our WDA content (bible studies, books, articles, teaching outlines, workbooks, etc) plus a small library of kindle books for their training and personal reading. The response was very gratifying! And more than one of them stayed up til 2AM reading the rest of the week!*I bought 13 kindle fires and uploaded ALL our WDA content (bible studies, books, articles, teaching outlines, workbooks, etc) plus a small library of kindle books for their training and personal reading. The response was very gratifying! And more than one of them stayed up til 2AM reading the rest of the week!
  • We had a very honoring “roast” for Ken, who started the international ministry 20+ years ago. We shared funny Ken stories and had a time to pray for him as he begins to step back and I take on more leadership. He was also very affirming of me to the guys in my new role.
  • Having Dan Horne, the chairman of the board there was a godsend, especially as our teams broke into country groups and developed strategic plans for nationalizing their ministries. He brought a lot of good business sense as well as a deep pastoral heart for the men.
  • It was so fun to have my dad Paul Harkness with me getting to know the guys, sharing a short devotional Friday morning, and then traveling with our group to the safari on Saturday. Of course everyone loved him and it was gratifying to come back with him to Kenya, the first place in Africa I visited with him back when I was in high school!
  • Restoring Your Heart leader, Nancy Higgins put a fire in everyone’s belly for bringing emotional restoration to their countries. Tanzania, Congo, and Ethiopia are ready to roll as soon as possible! Kenya is planning go through the work books as a team immediately.
  • I heard literally dozens of testimonies about how God had changed the lives of our staff and the people they minister to through WDA and how this week represented a new page in the history of WDA for them. They are going back home with new materials, a fresh passion, and a clearer vision for how to develop disciple-making movements in their communities and nations.
  • There are SO many other fun and significant highlights. But the bottom line is this: We connected with God and with each other this week. That was my biggest goal and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome. Now its off to Zambia! More on that to come!

Nate Harkness

WDA International Director

Building a Worldwide Discipleship Association Philippines 2017

Posted on by Buddy Eades

Building a Worldwide Discipleship Association

Philippines 2017

Partnerships, Partners and Friends

This year, WDA expanded its work in the Philippines on a scale that is somewhat overwhelming, yet very exciting and humbling..  What is most impressive is that it hasn’t  even been a full year at all,  but rather just 8 months. Since last May our local partners- Sowers of the Word (SOW), The Philippine Bible Society ( PBS ) and The Center for Community  Transformation (CCT) have all done amazing work.  There have been dozens of training sessions lead by James, Remi, Perry and Dennis which have already resulted in more than 20,000 people participating in small groups.  Now that our books are being translated and printed in Tagalog these numbers continue to grow.  In our most recent conversation with Dennis Monong (CCT Leader) he reported great interest in Life Coaching and Restoring Your Heart  this will provide even more opportunities in addition to our established ministries with Cornerstone.  As a result of WDA ministry growth and impact, Filipino financial partners have provided donations to hire 2 additional trainers to help with the demand.  The overall strategy is to continue to train leaders who begin groups using Cornerstone and follow that initial training with Life Coaching, Restoring Your Heart and Phase III (Equipping for Ministry). A three year plan is in place that addresses publishing, translation, training and leadership development.

God has been continuing to build momentum for discipleship in the Filipino church through the ongoing work of our partners and support provided by WDA.  The potential impact of our WDA Training, Materials and Philosophy of Ministry should not be over looked.  When people understand that our approach to disciple building is not merely curriculum driven but is part of a wholistic approach toward Christlike Maturity, where people “Think, Feel and Act” like Jesus, they begin to ask for more!

Significant portions of this trip were designed to live our philosophy of ministry.  In addition to training, coaching and teaching WDA staff  had the opportunity to live with and among pastors, to visit schools, seminaries, orphanages and factories, to visit over meals,  and enjoy one another.  The first stage  in Disciple building and our R-CAPS model is Relationship!  Our time together resulted in many in-depth multi-day discussions about how WDA could have a wholistic impact on the lives of Filipinos.

These men, women and children who span the spectrum from extremely impoverished villages and street-dwellers to influential Chinese-Filipino businessmen, have all had just a taste of what WDA has to offer and are eager to continue to know and roll out more.  Here are a few of their stories.

“Miles to go before I sleep”

Just how many miles are you willing to drive to help a small rural church learn about Discipleship?  James Tioco drove 15 hours to the northern city of Tuguegarao where he met with leaders who are eager to begin our WDA Cornerstone ministry.  These leaders were getting trained following the same orientation program and same material that WDA staff and board members presented last May.  The week before our team arrived (January 28, 2017) our friend and brother James Tioco, drove to meet with a group of leaders.  James used materials printed by the Philippine Bible Society.  They were given our Getting Started/Knowing God (translated into Tagalog) which is now printed in the Philippines as a “flip” book.  James also taught from Disciple Building: A Biblical Framework and A Small Groups Manual.  Each Training done by Sowers of the Word (WDA Philippines) prepares leaders to start a group themselves with leaders who will often begin a new Cornerstone group in their churches. The goal is not to just learn new information but to begin groups using the curriculum. To date over 300 groups have been started.

“MGC New Life Christian Academy”

After the 15 hour trip back to Manila James met our WDA team at MGC New Life Christian Academy where David Parfitt, Buddy Eades and Hugh Kirby were to meet with teachers and students.  Hugh presented his testimony and we were able to challenge the students to consider how they would be able to disciple others.  The staff was so impressed with what they heard that 2 weeks later our team was invited back to MGC Christian Academy to present WDA’s ministry and give them an overview of our materials. Since our return it has been decided they will use our materials in their schools and training has been set up in order for them to begin!

“Leaders Gather for Celebration, Stories and Orientation”

WDA leaders met together with the national leaders, who have been part of our ongoing discipleship training since our initial trip in May, for a  2 day Leadership Conference. Keynote speakers, Dr. Ruth Callanta and Dr. Melba Maggay, from the Center for Community Transformation (CCT) taught us the wholistic ministry approach that CCT employes. During this conference Jack Larson, Hugh Kirby (New Hope Church), David Parfitt and Buddy Eades presented  an overview of Life Coaching and Jesus ministry as it relates to WDA’s Philosophy of Ministry.  Each participant was given a copy of the Life Coaching Manual and learned how to develop a NGP.  NGP (Needs Goals Projects) is a Life Coaching disciple building planning tool.

“PBS: Host and Ministry Partner” 

The Philippine Bible Society has become a significant ministry partner.  It should not be underestimated what PBS means to the roll out of WDA’s materials and training.  PBS hosts local Manila training in their headquarters.  PBS is designing, publishing, translating and providing distribution and sales of our materials (both in their book stores and on their web store). They are part of a the International Bible Society and as a result of this relationship they have committed to becoming a conduit for providing our materials and training to other countries where the International Bible Society is located.  Each Bible Society has the same capability to print, design, translate and sell our materials.  WDA partners in other countries would have the same opportunities as our Philippines ministry is using to provide WDA materials at a low cost with the same quality, consistency and format.  The implications would be that WDA has the potential to print worldwide and local churches would not incur shipping costs.

“Factory Workers see Transformation” 

WDA has a goal to see people transformed into the likeness of Christ.  One worker at a factory run by Center for Community Transformation has seen her life change! “I was once a loudmouth and now I am different because of being part of WDA.”  She and her co-workers are part of small groups provided for every worker.  These men and women are not just part of groups but also lead groups themselves.  Each factory run by CCT has a pastor who oversees discipleship and manages a process that ranges from management all the way  to the line worker. Over 20,000 factory workers are now using WDA material in their small discipleship groups.

“Leaders Meet for Training and Planning”

At the CCT Retreat Center in the Tagaytay Highlands we met with leaders from Sowers of the Word, Leaders and Students from Febias Bible College and Seminary as well as Pastors from the Makati Gospel Church.  These men and women were able to receive training on the Restoring  Your Heart Ministry and also learn more about the Ministry of Christ and Philosophy of Ministry of WDA.  All of these leaders were part of previous training with WDA.  The benefit of returning to meet with them is that we are able to reinforce the information that they have learned by reading Disciple Building: A Biblical Framework, doing groups using Cornerstone and also by going thru training in small groups using WDA’s A Small Groups Manual.

The Pastors for the Makati Gospel Church were looking at using WDA as their main discipleship focus for the church.  MGC has many small groups and were looking at many different approaches to discipleship.  Our time with them over meals, during meetings and in individual conversations has resulted in them choosing to now only roll out WDA as the main equipping curriculum but also were part of helping us use the Cornerstone in the MCG Christian Academy. MCG Academy will use Cornerstone with 7-12 grade students as well as with faculty.

Along with MCG, one of our WDA trainers , Sis. Remi, along with Sis. Joy, Dean of Students at FEBIAS (Far East Bible Institute And Seminary), invited Jack, David and Buddy to meet with students and faculty to introduce our Disciple Building approach.  FEBIAS is also looking at WDA as a significant part of student development and small groups at the college and seminary level.

The Restorative Ministry

The Restorative Ministry also sent a significant team to work with Rich Smith, WDA Staff member in Quezon City, Philippines.  Rich has been in Quezon City developing a ministry with local pastors who have been very interested in starting Restoring Your Heart groups.  The RYH team led 6 trainings over a 3 week period for people who were committed to start RYH groups.  The challenges that face WDA with these prototype groups are providing ongoing feedback and training while receiving feedback about how the experience is going. WDA will use the feedback with these leaders and also with groups started by Sowers of the Word to begin a national strategy this coming year.  In addition to Quezon City groups, 3 more groups have begun with Leaders at the Makati Gospel Church, the Philippine Bible Society and at FEBIAS.

What we see in these stories is but a small number of ways WDA is becoming a Worldwide Discipleship Association.  WDA has a commitment to serve the Church Worldwide.  Ministry partnerships around the globe will have ongoing impact as WDA provides the training, service and materials necessary to begin national movements where people grow to maturity.  We would greatly appreciate your prayers and financial support in making these endeavors possible.